Dreams of White Dresses
by xerxia31
Summary: Winter in District 12 makes Peeta dream of things that can never be...


A little bit of canon compliant post mockingjay holiday everlark

o-o-o

As a child, I just accepted that someday I'd grow up, get married, have children. It's just how things were done in District 12.

Nearly every Saturday from spring to late fall, I'd watch from the front window of the bakery as pairs of young people exited the justice building across the square, the wedding song wafting after them. The women were always dressed in white dresses, the men beaming at their brides like the rising sun.

Despite the hardship of 12, almost everyone got married. It was one of the few truly hopeful occasions in the district. And growing up in a bakery, I was surrounded by marriage. We baked so many cakes for merchant weddings—and even a few for Seam brides—that I never considered any other future for myself.

At least until I was reaped. Then I lost every youthful expectation for my life. Then I lost my innocence.

Surviving the Games didn't restore the marriage expectations of my childhood. My status as victor alienated me from my family and friends, made me feel that all of the norms of life in 12 were no longer for me. On top of that, all of the uncertainty about Katniss's feelings for me, and my own for her combined with the hell of being forced into an engagement that was for nothing but show. Marriage, in my mind, became something almost shameful. A punishment.

Then we were reaped again.

But in the midst of all that hell, all of the preparing for death a second time, there was Katniss, wearing a white wedding gown unlike anything in District 12. Glowing the kind of white that nothing in 12 could ever be, covered in pearls. I knew she hated it. Hated the pageantry, the dress and everything it represented.

But I'd be lying if I said the vision of Katniss in that gown didn't stay with me.

When I told Caesar about our fake toasting and fake baby, I'd been giving words to that vision, however not real it was.

Through those second Games, through the war, even through the hijacking and all of the confusion of my slow recovery, I held onto that mental image, an image that was somehow never fully twisted by the Capitol. In my mind's eye, that garish white gown morphed into a simple white dress, and the mutt inside morphed into the beautiful but wary young woman I'd been in love with half my life.

Katniss and I have grown together, and I am finally confident in her love for me. We've been living together for more than three years now, in the house in Victor's village that was assigned to me after the first Games. And it's enough, just having her beside me is enough, always, and far more than I'd ever hoped.

But the mental image remains.

The kitchen door bangs open, startling me from my daydreaming. I glance at the sketchbook in front of me and see that, yet again, I've been doodling pictures of Katniss in a white dress, kneeling in front of our fireplace. Guiltily, I close the book, locking the fantasy away before the red-nosed wood nymph currently dripping slush all over the tile floor can see it.

She's weighted down by bags and boxes, she must have picked up our weekly delivery from the Capitol. I jump up to divest her of some of her burden, stealing a kiss as I do. "I'd have come with you, Love, if I'd known there was such a big order this week," I tell her.

Katniss shrugs. "It's fine. I wasn't far from the tracks when I heard the train coming in, so I thought I'd save us a trip." Katniss still goes to the woods most days, though on a wintery day like today it's less for hunting and gathering, and more for the thinking that she seems to do best out there.

She tugs off her boots and hangs her coat over the back of a kitchen chair, where it continues to drip on my formerly clean floor. I smile to myself, in spite of knowing I'll have to wash it again. Katniss is Katniss, there's no changing her. Not that I would ever want to.

I begin to go through the bags I've stacked on our table; she snatches one away before I can peek in it, wandering away on soundless stocking feet to hide it. I can't help the wide grin that spreads across my face. Yule is almost upon us, she's been squirrelling away all kinds of things for weeks now. As have I.

"Come shower with me," her musical voice floats down the stairs, and thoughts of white dresses are quickly replaced by thoughts of Katniss, naked and wet and slick beneath my hands.

o-o-o

I could never go back to the bakery life of my youth, there are too many bad memories, too many triggers. But I do still love baking. And at this time of year, I enjoy baking for our neighbours almost as much as I like baking for Katniss.

A steady stream of modest requests for special breads, fancy cookies and cakes come in, paid for in trade, a few fresh eggs or a pot of jam or a small pile of firewood. We don't need the goods, Katniss still hunts and gathers, and our war pensions cover the rest. But the people of District 12 are proud and independent. Offering them free treats would only offend them, something that has taken a while for me to truly understand.

I'm frosting the first of the Yule log shaped cakes—called _bûche de noël_, in some long lost tongue—when there's a tap at the back door. Kai, the miller's younger son, asking for a toasting cake, in exchange for ten pounds of the mill's finest flour, which is far nicer than anything we used to get before.

Marriage is probably the same now as it ever was, but the act of getting married is different. There's no justice building anymore, no houses to assign to the newly married couple. There's nothing but a card to sign and mail to the central government in what used to be the Capitol. Most couples in Twelve don't bother. It's the toasting that matters here, that hasn't changed.

It's not the first request I've gotten for a toasting cake, though the season is unusual. All of the other requests have been in the spring, summer or fall. A winter toasting cake will be a novelty for me.

I ask Kai how he wants it decorated, and he stammers, "She said to leave it up to you." He's gone before I can even ask his fiancée's name, leaving me utterly perplexed as to what to put on his cake. Spring flowers or autumn leaves would feel silly in the dark of winter.

Katniss laughs when she comes home and I tell her about Kai's request and my lack of ideas. "Whatever you make will be perfect," she says. "Use your imagination."

o-o-o

When my imagination still hasn't kicked in two days later, I'm panicking. Kai will be by in the morning to collect his treasure, and I still have no idea how I'll decorate it. My sketchbook teems with drawings of cakes, yet none feel right. "Come for a walk with me," Katniss says softly. It's her go-to suggestion when she knows I'm frustrated, getting close to the edge. The clean mountain air always helps calm and soothe both of us.

We head for the woods. I don't come out here often in winter, snow masks the unevenness of the terrain and makes it a challenge to navigate with my prosthetic. But we go slowly, hand in mittened hand, sticking to the trails Katniss knows so well.

We end up in a small clearing, the blanket of snow pocked with animal tracks. It's a relief to settle onto a large rock at the edge of the clearing, to take the weight off my leg, which is sore from the twisting of constant missteps. Katniss pulls a flask of hot tea from her ever present hunting bag but doesn't sit beside me. Nor, though, does she take off to hunt or search for nuts or teaberries. Instead, she starts rolling balls of snow, setting two squat snowmen close enough to where I sit that I can touch them without standing.

Katniss amasses a pile of woodland winter offerings on the rock beside me, pine cones and twigs, slightly shrivelled orange-red winterberries, glossy holly leaves. Then she chatters about nothing as she festoons one of the snow people with bits of colour.

I'm meant to decorate the other, I know this. But the pile of winter bits instead captures my attention, and I mould the little bit of snow on the rock into a disc about the size of a small cake. Katniss falls silent, watching me encircle my snow cake with the holly, scattering berries across the top, adding a couple of pinecones as a final decoration. "Well," she says softly. "I think you've found your inspiration."

We fill Katniss's bag with leaves and berries for me to use as examples and head home, my mind abuzz with plans.

She insists I soak in a hot bath before beginning, understanding without words how sore our little adventure has left me. When I emerge from the bath, she's made soup, and converted the low table in our living room into a work area where I can craft while sitting, to rest my leg. It's something that people who only know Katniss by reputation would never guess, how much pleasure she finds in taking care of people. In taking care of me, especially. I can't say I mind. Katniss's love language is action based, and the tenderness she shows me means so much more than the words she's always struggled to find.

I love to take care of her too, but I have to be a lot craftier about it. Katniss is fiercely independent. Even now, nearly four years after the end of the war, she hates to depend on anyone. It can be trying at times, her need to be strong and always in control. But I love her exactly the way she is.

We eat and chat, and then she washes the dishes while I gather the ingredients I need to make the cake decorations. By the time she wanders back out to join me, I've shaped a half dozen holly leaves and have started on the pine cones.

She curls up beside me, nose in a new book her mother sent from Four. It must not be an interesting story though because before long I notice that her breathing has evened out. When I glance over, her head is pillowed against the sofa arm and her eyes are closed. I turn my attention away from my work to observe her. It's not often that I get to watch her sleeping so peacefully. She's an early riser by nature, and the only time she lingers in bed is when the darkness encroaches. Those dark days she doesn't rest easily, and I'm too preoccupied worrying to leer.

But tonight, her expression is soft and relaxed and frankly she's adorable. I reach over to brush a lock of her hair off her face, and she makes a low, content little noise. I'm mostly done anyway, so as quietly as I'm capable of, I gather up the sugar decorations and stow them in the icebox. Then I gather my gorgeous girlfriend in my arms and carry her to bed. She protests just faintly, still mostly asleep, but snuggles against my collarbone anyway.

I am so lucky.

It makes my leg throb to carry her up the stairs, but I don't let that stop me, laying her in our bed and undressing her with gentle hands, pulling crisp white sheets over her bare skin. She sighs, not wholly asleep but groggy enough to let me baby her, just a little. Then I shuck my own clothing and crawl into bed behind her, pulling her warm body flush against my own. Sleeping pressed tightly together will never get old, for me. It was a revelation when we were teenagers, those long ago nights on the train. It's even better now.

I'm awake long before the sun after a night with no nightmares. Though I'd like to linger in bed, warm and snug with Katniss half sprawled across my chest, it's Yule. Kai will be by soon.

I sneak downstairs on a leg that feels far better than yesterday, and pull out the toasting cake. I put the last of the sugar paste decorations on, but there's still something missing, something I can't quite put my finger on.

Making tea is a distraction, I let my mind wander as I shake dried yaupon and mint leaves into the mug Katniss made in her short-lived pottery phase, glazed orange just for me. Thinking about Katniss while standing beside this toasting cake pulls my mind inexorably to Katniss sharing a toasting cake with me. And then I know exactly what the cake needs.

For as often as I've thought about Katniss in that white dress, I've never really considered what a toasting cake for us would look like. I'd make it, of course, but what it would look like I've never considered. Now I know. _Pearls_. Bright white pearls like on that long ago dress. Shimmering ivory pearls like that day on the beach in our second arena.

I'm attaching the last of the iridescent white sugar pearls to Kai's cake when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. A bride, in glowing white.

Katniss, in a long white gown, striding towards me.

My heart skips before my brain catches up. Not a wedding dress. Just the white bedsheets wrapped around her naked form like a gown.

The rising sun catches her, gilding her long, sleep-rumpled waves, setting the smooth olive skin of her bare shoulders aglow. An absolute vision in white. The most beautiful person I've ever seen. She would make a stunning bride. I know this image will show up in my sketchbook. Show up in my fantasies.

I long to tell her those things. But now is not the time. Her expression is a crushing combination of defiant and forlorn. "You weren't there," she rasps, and even though I'm right in front of her, I understand her meaning. She's woken up, probably from a bad dream, and found the bed empty. It's a shattering feeling when it happens to me. I know it's the same for her.

"I'm right here," I remind her, crossing the few steps to pull her into my arms. She sags against me, trembling a little, and I hold her tight. I don't tell her it'll be all right, it's not a promise I can make. But it's okay now, we're okay now, and that's enough.

It only takes a few minutes for her to come back to herself, then her innate curiosity takes over. "Did you finish?" she asks, peeking over my shoulder to where the cake rests on the big oak island in our kitchen.

With an arm around her cool shoulders, I guide her over to look. She gasps. "Pearls," she whispers. "Oh, Peeta."

"Think they'll like it?" I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, a nice balance of winter and elegance.

"It's perfect," she sighs.

Kai picks up the cake at mid morning, barely glancing at it before scurrying off into a light snowfall, leaving the promised sack of flour on my table. Katniss stays home for the day, in an odd, introspective mood, vestiges of her frightened morning I think.

But it's wonderful to spend the day quietly together. We pop popcorn and string it with berries to make a garland for the mantel. Most of the district decorates trees for Yule, but Katniss can't stand the idea of killing a tree just for decoration, and I don't mind not having one. We play a new card game that Dalton taught me, and as in all things, Katniss beats me handily. We take an afternoon nap together, and when we wake up in the gathering gloom we make love languidly. It's a perfect day of contentment.

We prepare our Yule meal together, a modest lamb roast, some winter squash, roasted chestnuts and mulled cider. There's only the two of us, no reason to make a huge fuss, but Katniss covers the table with our nicest cloth and lights candles anyway. It's Yule, after all.

After dinner she tugs me back to our living room. The hearth has been swept clean, the Yule log she hauled home and shaped earlier in the week waiting. It's traditional to burn a large piece of oak, and then to settle around it while it burns, telling stories and sharing Yule gifts. But Katniss stops me when I move to light the log. "Open this first," she says, pulling a long, slender box from behind the couch. A Yule gift, wrapped in plain brown paper.

Inside is a vestige of old Twelve, a long fork with a wooden grip. Designed to hold something over the fire to cook, in Twelve they're only ever used for toastings, to hold the bread a couple uses to seal their vows. This one is far more beautiful than the few I'd seen back in my childhood, though, it's handle made of hickory and polished to a bright gleam. A little work of art. I'm turning it over in my hands, admiring the craftsmanship, the purpose lost on me until Katniss clears her throat. "Well?" she says.

I don't say '_well what_?', but it's a near thing. Warm and happy and just a little drowsy from the early morning, I'm not at my sharpest. Katniss frowns at me. "Don't you want to?" Still, it takes another couple of beats for me to clue in.

"Toast?" I rasp, terrified I've misunderstood. Katniss has never brought up toasting. Not once in the three years we've been living together.

Katniss nods.

I glance over at the unlit hearth, understanding. A zing of excitement zips up my spine. "Now?" It's barely a whisper.

Katniss smirks. "You got other plans?"

No white dress, no cake, no elaborate plans, but I couldn't care less. The woman I have loved forever wants to marry me. None of the rest is important.

I reach, again, for the flint and steel, and again Katniss stays my hand with a soft laugh. "Why don't you get the bread," she says, still smirking. Right, the bread, that's kind of important. We baked two loaves together this morning, one to go along with our Yule meal, and one for breakfast tomorrow, so there is a perfect, fresh loaf just waiting in the bread box. Fortuitous timing. "I'll just go change while you do that," she adds, eyes sparkling.

I glance down at my own clothing. I'm wearing decent slacks, ones without any holes anyway, and a pale blue sweater that Katniss's mom knit for me last year. Nice enough for Yule, but maybe not for a toasting. Certainly not as fancy as that tuxedo they dressed me in before the quell. "Should I change too?" I don't even know what else I'd wear, I got rid of most of the clothing that Portia made for me years ago. None of it fit anymore.

Katniss leans over and kisses me, softly but with heat. "You're perfect," she says, then she slides away on silent feet.

I'm practically floating as I grab the bread from the kitchen. I'm going to marry the love of my life, tonight. The best Yule gift ever, and so very typical of my Katniss, who is so sweetly impulsive.

It takes Katniss more than 10 minutes to get dressed, I'm on the edge of alarm, worrying that she's changed her mind, when she reappears. And in that moment, I understand that this isn't an impulsive decision. Katniss has clearly been thinking about marrying me for awhile. Because my beautiful girlfriend, my almost wife, is wearing a white dress.

It's not like the dress she wore in the Capitol, the one that spurred so many fantasies for me. Yet it's also not like the dresses District 12 brides wore when we were younger.

None of those dresses were ever this sexy.

The top is cut almost like a nightgown, thin little straps and no sleeves, showing off Katniss's leanly muscled arms and shoulders, and just a hint of the swell of her breasts. The rest of the dress is sleek, skimming over gentle rounded hips, sliding along her curves like a caress before ending just above her ankles. Her feet are bare and her hair mostly loose except for a few little bits held back with a comb.

All of my breath is knocked out of me in a gust, and for many long moments I can only stare, jaw unhinged and eyes wet. "You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," I gasp when I can catch my breath.

Katniss smiles at my reaction, and I swear her eyes are a little shiny too. She reaches for me, and I grasp her outstretched hand, raising it to my lips. "None of that, Mr. Mellark," she grins, "or we'll never get the toasting fire lit."

The dry kindling catches with ease, it takes only a few minutes before we're kneeling before the fire. Toasting over a Yule log. It's just unconventional enough to be perfect for us, since nothing we have ever done has been predictable.

Katniss slices the bread because my hands are shaking so hard. As she slides a piece onto the fork, she points out where our names are engraved on the handle. "When did you do that?" I ask. I know her handwriting.

She shrugs. "Dashiel traded me lessons on his lathe for a bushel of pears."

"Pears?" That had to have been at least two months ago. "You made this?"

Katniss smiles. "Just the handle."

"It's incredible." Katniss has dabbled in so many crafts over the years, and she's been nearly universally good at them. This is no exception.

And she made it for us. For our toasting that she's clearly been planning for a long time.

As thrilled as I am to finally be marrying the woman of my dreams, I can't help wishing she'd clued me in sooner. "We don't have a cake," I murmur. I didn't even save a bûche de noël because Katniss doesn't really care for them.

"Of course we have a cake, silly." Katniss grins smugly.

"We do?" She shakes her head in fond exasperation. Clearly, I'm missing something. "Kai's cake?" Could it be?

"It's in the pantry."

"That's was for us?" The rusty cogs in my brain lurch into place. "You planned that too?" That's why Kai never seemed all that interested in what I was making. Why he left every creative decision, from looks to flavour, up to me. Because of that, I had created the cake with Katniss in mind. She must have known I would.

"Didn't you wonder why a seventeen year old needed a toasting cake?" Katniss smirks. I mean, no, it didn't occur to me. Katniss and I weren't much older than that when we started living together. We're not much older than that now, really.

Katniss laughs, and it's such a beautiful, magical sound that the tiny bit of irritation melts away. I kiss the smirk right off her mouth, kiss her until we're both breathless. Then as one, we wrap our hands around the fork, and toast our marital bread.

I only cry a little as we recite the ancient vows and seal our promise. Then Katniss sings the traditional district 12 wedding song, and I cry a little more.

We celebrate our union right there in front of the fire. I peel my bride out of her white gown and we make love joyfully, with more promises and more tears. Then we share our toasting cake naked, and make love again.

As the Yule log burns to embers, we fall asleep wrapped in each other, my wife—_my wife_!—cradled against my chest. My heart is full.


End file.
